Showing posts with label riddles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label riddles. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
"Who's The Most Stupid Here?" - a test of your bias in viewing a problem
I've seen the following picture pop up a lot lately in my social media feeds:
What do you think?
It seems like a lot of people instantly answer "4" and move on, but I don't know if the answer is all that simple. Let's consider what might actually be happening to everyone in the picture.
Number 1, the guy in the blue shirt who kind of looks like he's probably the kind of guy who smokes a pipe, is sitting on a branch doing nothing while numbers 2 and 3 are both trying to make him fall. We don't know how high the branch is, so the fall may cause minor injury or it may kill. Either way, number 1 is doing nothing to act against those who are trying to harm him. Is he a pacifist or is he just not paying attention to the world around him? Hard to say. If he's aware of what's happening but does nothing to stop it, then I'd say that's pretty stupid. If he's simply unaware of what's happening then he's also pretty stupid. Inaction, by choice or due to ignorance, is not a strong position to me.
Number 2 has the look of a guy who was once a high school bully but now is the old balding asshole who still takes pleasure in hurting others. We don't know why number 2 is sawing off the branch on number 1. The smile definitely makes it look like he's being a jerk, though it's also possible that, say, number 1 is a pedophile and number 2 is helping society make a hard but righteous decision. Again, it's hard to tell. However, since number 2 is looking at the branch he's sawing, we can say that he's aware that he's about to injure or kill number 1. Without having any justifiable reason for doing this, we can assume that 2 is a jerk. However, 2 also seems unaware that 3 is sawing the branch on which both he and number 1 are seated. Although the thickness of the branch may suggest that 2 will saw off number 1 long before 3 can saw off number 2, it still seems like 2 is oblivious to the fact that 3 is sawing the branch. His ignorance to his own situation while harming number 1 is pretty stupid, if you ask me.
Number 3 is the guy I'm most worried about here. We can't see his face, though he may be wearing a suit (maybe he's a Martin Shkreli executive asshole, kind of guy). Number 3 is sawing the branch of 1 and 2. Number 3 is not in danger himself (as far as we can tell). Number 3's action here will directly cause harm to 1 and 2 (well, as I said above, it may be more likely that 2 harms 1 first and then, after 1 falls, 3 will harm 2). Number 3 is looking at the branch he's sawing. He seems like he might be aware of the harm he's about to cause. What I see here is that 3 is about to injure or kill one or two people by choice. There could be good reason for it. What if 1 and 2 are both CEOs for health insurance companies that have been preying on the weaknesses of the nation while making themselves uber rich? Or, what if they're both serial rapists? However, without knowing more, it seems like 3 is the biggest jerk of them all. He's targeting others for harm.
Number 4, the one a lot of folks seem to think is the dumbest of the lot, is sawing his own branch and appears to be aware of it. He's looking down at the branch while sawing. However, he also has a smile. He could be unaware of the fact that his own action is about to cause him harm, but his smile makes me wonder if he knows what he's doing. Maybe he's committing suicide. Maybe he's harming himself on purpose. Maybe he knows the drop isn't very far and just wants to get away from the other idiots. Again, hard to say. If number 4 is unaware that he's sawing his own branch, then, yeah, he's pretty fracking stupid. However, if 4 is aware of what he's doing, then he may be the least stupid of them all. He's making a choice to do something (action), this something will not harm anyone else (1, 2, and 3 are not in danger through 4's actions), and he appears to be happy with the choice (not necessarily a good thing, but it could mean that he's found resolution in this choice). So, the only way 4 is the dumbest of them all, as most people say, is if he has no idea what he's actually doing. But we can't know that based solely on the picture.
So the choices become a little more difficult then. Which is dumber: inaction in one's own demise (number 1), causing harm to another while being unaware of your own danger (number 2), harming others outright (number 3), or harming yourself (number 4)? A lot of people think that 4 is the dumbest of them all, but I think that's only possibly the case if 4 is unaware of what he's doing. However, if 4 knows what he's doing, then I think 1, 2, and 3 are all far dumber than he. Number 1 is going to be harmed through inaction, number 2 is causing harm while seeming to be unaware of his own danger, and number 3 is about to harm others. But that's just my take on this situation (and making a lot of assumptions). What do you think?
It seems like a lot of people instantly answer "4" and move on, but I don't know if the answer is all that simple. Let's consider what might actually be happening to everyone in the picture.
Number 1, the guy in the blue shirt who kind of looks like he's probably the kind of guy who smokes a pipe, is sitting on a branch doing nothing while numbers 2 and 3 are both trying to make him fall. We don't know how high the branch is, so the fall may cause minor injury or it may kill. Either way, number 1 is doing nothing to act against those who are trying to harm him. Is he a pacifist or is he just not paying attention to the world around him? Hard to say. If he's aware of what's happening but does nothing to stop it, then I'd say that's pretty stupid. If he's simply unaware of what's happening then he's also pretty stupid. Inaction, by choice or due to ignorance, is not a strong position to me.
Number 2 has the look of a guy who was once a high school bully but now is the old balding asshole who still takes pleasure in hurting others. We don't know why number 2 is sawing off the branch on number 1. The smile definitely makes it look like he's being a jerk, though it's also possible that, say, number 1 is a pedophile and number 2 is helping society make a hard but righteous decision. Again, it's hard to tell. However, since number 2 is looking at the branch he's sawing, we can say that he's aware that he's about to injure or kill number 1. Without having any justifiable reason for doing this, we can assume that 2 is a jerk. However, 2 also seems unaware that 3 is sawing the branch on which both he and number 1 are seated. Although the thickness of the branch may suggest that 2 will saw off number 1 long before 3 can saw off number 2, it still seems like 2 is oblivious to the fact that 3 is sawing the branch. His ignorance to his own situation while harming number 1 is pretty stupid, if you ask me.
Number 3 is the guy I'm most worried about here. We can't see his face, though he may be wearing a suit (maybe he's a Martin Shkreli executive asshole, kind of guy). Number 3 is sawing the branch of 1 and 2. Number 3 is not in danger himself (as far as we can tell). Number 3's action here will directly cause harm to 1 and 2 (well, as I said above, it may be more likely that 2 harms 1 first and then, after 1 falls, 3 will harm 2). Number 3 is looking at the branch he's sawing. He seems like he might be aware of the harm he's about to cause. What I see here is that 3 is about to injure or kill one or two people by choice. There could be good reason for it. What if 1 and 2 are both CEOs for health insurance companies that have been preying on the weaknesses of the nation while making themselves uber rich? Or, what if they're both serial rapists? However, without knowing more, it seems like 3 is the biggest jerk of them all. He's targeting others for harm.
Number 4, the one a lot of folks seem to think is the dumbest of the lot, is sawing his own branch and appears to be aware of it. He's looking down at the branch while sawing. However, he also has a smile. He could be unaware of the fact that his own action is about to cause him harm, but his smile makes me wonder if he knows what he's doing. Maybe he's committing suicide. Maybe he's harming himself on purpose. Maybe he knows the drop isn't very far and just wants to get away from the other idiots. Again, hard to say. If number 4 is unaware that he's sawing his own branch, then, yeah, he's pretty fracking stupid. However, if 4 is aware of what he's doing, then he may be the least stupid of them all. He's making a choice to do something (action), this something will not harm anyone else (1, 2, and 3 are not in danger through 4's actions), and he appears to be happy with the choice (not necessarily a good thing, but it could mean that he's found resolution in this choice). So, the only way 4 is the dumbest of them all, as most people say, is if he has no idea what he's actually doing. But we can't know that based solely on the picture.
So the choices become a little more difficult then. Which is dumber: inaction in one's own demise (number 1), causing harm to another while being unaware of your own danger (number 2), harming others outright (number 3), or harming yourself (number 4)? A lot of people think that 4 is the dumbest of them all, but I think that's only possibly the case if 4 is unaware of what he's doing. However, if 4 knows what he's doing, then I think 1, 2, and 3 are all far dumber than he. Number 1 is going to be harmed through inaction, number 2 is causing harm while seeming to be unaware of his own danger, and number 3 is about to harm others. But that's just my take on this situation (and making a lot of assumptions). What do you think?
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Ten Fish in a Tank Riddle
I just saw a post on God's Facebook page that had a title with this fairly bold claim:
"NO ONE Can Solve This Riddle. Are You Able To Outsmart The Rest"
I couldn't help but click on the link, which then took me to a CrowdSocial page which had the following easy riddle on it:
Well, what do you think? It hopefully won't take you too long to figure out the answer. This riddle most certainly wasn't difficult enough to warrant the claim that I saw on the post that God shared. In fact, this kind of riddle really isn't difficult at all.
There are 10 fish in a tank. 2 have drowned, 4 swim away, and 3 have died. How many fish are left?
It's weird that only two fish have drowned since drowning fish means a lack of oxygen in the water, which then suggests that all of the fish should drown. I guess maybe the two fish that drowned just had a much higher oxygen requirement than the others. Maybe I'm overthinking this...
You've probably already figured out that there are 10 fish left in the tank. The 2 that drowned are part of the 3 that died, but we're not told anything about them being removed from the tank after death. 4 of them might swim away, but they won't get far (they're in a tank). So, all 10 fish will still be in the tank, even if dead or swimming in circles.
Of course, you have to allow that this is a fish tank we're talking about. The tank could be just small enough to hold 10 fish or it could be bigger than all of the oceans of Earth combined, but it's still a fish tank. Some guy posted in the comments on God's post that it could be a combat tank, but even then the answer still holds.
If you like an easy riddle like the one above, then here are some more that you might like from Distractify:
Before I leave you, here's another fairly simple riddle that might tickle your fancy. What do you think?
"NO ONE Can Solve This Riddle. Are You Able To Outsmart The Rest"
I couldn't help but click on the link, which then took me to a CrowdSocial page which had the following easy riddle on it:
Well, what do you think? It hopefully won't take you too long to figure out the answer. This riddle most certainly wasn't difficult enough to warrant the claim that I saw on the post that God shared. In fact, this kind of riddle really isn't difficult at all.
There are 10 fish in a tank. 2 have drowned, 4 swim away, and 3 have died. How many fish are left?
It's weird that only two fish have drowned since drowning fish means a lack of oxygen in the water, which then suggests that all of the fish should drown. I guess maybe the two fish that drowned just had a much higher oxygen requirement than the others. Maybe I'm overthinking this...
You've probably already figured out that there are 10 fish left in the tank. The 2 that drowned are part of the 3 that died, but we're not told anything about them being removed from the tank after death. 4 of them might swim away, but they won't get far (they're in a tank). So, all 10 fish will still be in the tank, even if dead or swimming in circles.
Of course, you have to allow that this is a fish tank we're talking about. The tank could be just small enough to hold 10 fish or it could be bigger than all of the oceans of Earth combined, but it's still a fish tank. Some guy posted in the comments on God's post that it could be a combat tank, but even then the answer still holds.
Pretty simple riddle, but still fun.
If you like an easy riddle like the one above, then here are some more that you might like from Distractify:
(Again, the title makes it sound like these riddles will actually be hard to solve, but that's really not the case. They're simple.)
Before I leave you, here's another fairly simple riddle that might tickle your fancy. What do you think?
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Plutarch Dies at the End
Wallowing in my own self-pitty last night due to the continued presence of my runny nose, cough, and stuffed-up sinuses from this damned sickness I've had, I sought out a horror film to watch alone and in the dark. I came upon John Dies in the End while searching through my Netflix queue. I had added said film because it sounded promising, though I couldn't recall having ever seen a trailer or read any reviews. So I jumped to the ol' Google and found the film's trailer to be enticing. The film is definitely worth a watch for anyone who enjoys humorous comedy, but I'm not offering a review of the film here. Rather, I'm writing this because of one interesting part of the film: the prologue.
The opening of the film presents a simple thought experiment in a not-so-simple and enjoyably quirky way:
What do you think? If you're anything like me, the first answer that comes to your mind is an obvious "no". The axe has been completely re-constructed, so the original parts that were used to behead the now-rotting, corpsified zombie-dude are no longer in your possession and are most likely just adding to the mass of waste at some local landfill.
However, that's not the reason that I think the answer of "no" is astoundingly obvious (you might not have caught the primary reason for the answer being "no" on your first watch of that video; if so, watch it again. Good to go? Awesome). Hopefully you saw that the primary reason that the answer to the question is "no" is because what slew Swastika-Tongue in the first place was one, some, or all of the eight bullets that you had shot him with before using the axe to remove his head (like I said, it's a simple riddle). However, if you take away the obvious answer and just allow yourself to assume that the real question of the riddle is whether or not the axe you now hold in your hand in the presence of Zombie-Swastika-Tongue is the same one that you had used the previous winter to remove the head of his former self, then you have another riddle that is really a re-hash of a much older thought experiment: The Ship of Theseus.
The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment proposed by Plutarch in the first century C.E. It goes something like this: the ship in which the hero Theseus and the young Athenian men returned from Crete (see the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur) was honored by Athenians and kept in good repair in the harbor of Athens for many centuries. Over time, as parts of the ship would degrade, they were slowly replaced, so eventually there were not many of the original parts of the ship remaining. The question then became "Is the ship, after replacing part for part over time, still the Ship of Theseus?"
The thought experiment, as it stands, really questions the value an object has based upon its parts. It's a question of philosophical identity.
There are other versions of this thought experiment. Some of them predate Plutarch's Ship of Theseus. For instance, there is a version in which Socrates and Plato each slowly exchanged the parts of their carriages such that the parts that once were in Plato's carriage have been completely replaced with parts from Socrates' carriage and vice versa and then the question is posited as to whether Plato is now using Socrates' carriage or if he's still in his own.
Other variants of the thought experiment have come since the time of Plutarch (with some interesting additions). The version that appears most similar to the prologue from John Dies at the End is the one known as "My Grandfather's Axe": my grandfather had an axe which he gave to my father. My father replaced the haft before giving the axe to me. I had to replace the head. Do I still have my grandfather's axe?
One of the more interesting variants of this thought experiment was proposed by Thomas Hobbes, the 1700's English philosopher and author of Leviathan. Hobbes' addition to the thought experiment works this way: you have the Ship of Theseus. You slowly take one piece of the ship off and replace it with a new piece. The old piece you keep. You continue in this manner, replacing pieces of the ship and saving the removed pieces. As this is happening over time, you take the pieces that had been removed and use those pieces to build a new ship, of exactly the same structure and design. By the time you have replaced the final original piece of the ship, you now have two identical ships. Which one is the Ship of Theseus?
Here's a fantastic breakdown of the original Ship of Theseus thought experiment and the Hobbes version from Wireless Philosophy:
The thesis of Joseph Butler, as reviewed in that video and suggesting that "objects persist in only a loose and popular sense", seems like a nice way to shrug off the problem as not being a problem in the first place. This is usually a fun approach to a lot of philosophy problems since a lot of the time it seems like there's no resolution to a lot of philosophy problems.
The reason I like this thought experiment, be it after replacing axe parts following your unexplained need to slay and behead some dude with a swastika tattooed on his tongue or replacing pieces of Theseus' ship, is because it questions identity. We are constantly shedding cells and gaining new ones, so are we ever identical with who we were previously? Darth Vader was almost fully replaced by mechanical parts, so was he still Anakin Skywalker? The philosopher Wittgenstein might have thought these questions were balderdash ("Roughly speaking: to say of two things that they are identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing") and, if that were the case, he might have been right.
It would be interesting if we could just say that something is such because people agree to call it such. Maybe the Ship of Theseus is really just whatever anyone decides to call "the Ship of Theseus". Maybe Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker because someone calls him so. If that were the case, then the answer to the thought experiment as proposed in John Dies at the End might be that the axe you're holding in your hand is the same axe as the one that beheaded Swastika-Tongue because his zombie has now said that it is the same axe (it might be a good conclusion since chances are you should be more worried about dealing with said zombie before considering philosophical puzzles anyway).
However, I still feel like the answer would be "no". Even if you had killed the dude with an axe in the first place (and not with one, some, or all of those eight bullets), the original axe has been completely replaced. The answer feels like "no" because none of the original axe remains and there are only two major parts of the axe to replace. When the problem is introduced as in the case of the Ship of Theseus, where the object is replaced a small amount at a time, that's when it gets harder to decide when to even consider the ship to no longer be the original.
Maybe one of the more interesting answers comes from those who like to add the temporal dimension to the consideration, such as in the Worm Theory as presented in the video above. When we question the temporal aspect of an object along with it's identity, we start hinting at a possible answer to the question (see Temporal Parts at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). We can say that any one thing is only ever fully identical to itself at one point in time, but then at other points in time it can only be similar to itself. Then using a name to define something falls back to the "loose and popular" context that Butler suggested. That sounds just about right, honestly. The answer that would suggest then is that the Ship of Theseus was only the same ship in the sense that it bore similarity to itself over time and that people still called it the Ship of Theseus is the only thing that made it the Ship of Theseus. In that case, the axe that hewed the head laden with a swastika-marked tongue and the axe that you now have to defend yourself against the zombie at the door are only similar, and maybe you would call it a different axe since you know you've replaced the parts but the zombie calls it the same axe since it looks similar to the original. Not a very rewarding answer, but an answer nonetheless (and now you can get on with hacking down the zombie as he is more than likely about to come at you).
There's rich food for thought there. Maybe Wittgenstein is right and it's nonsense to even worry about two things being identical. That seems to fit well with the answer that considers the temporal aspect to mean that an object has unique temporal parts during its existence (look up perdurantism). Whatever anyone's consideration of this little thought experiment may be, I think we can all agree that it's a lucky thing we don't truly live in a world where a guy can get shot 8 times and have his head chopped off with an axe but then still find a way to come back from death and then sew his head back on before coming to find us with the likely intent of exacting revenge.
Update (22 October 2017): I re-shared this recently and have had several people ask if I've read the book John Dies at the End. Happily, I can say, yes, I have, and I've also read the sequel, This Book is Full of Spiders. A third book in the series, What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror, just came out this month. Looking forward to reading that as well!
The opening of the film presents a simple thought experiment in a not-so-simple and enjoyably quirky way:
What do you think? If you're anything like me, the first answer that comes to your mind is an obvious "no". The axe has been completely re-constructed, so the original parts that were used to behead the now-rotting, corpsified zombie-dude are no longer in your possession and are most likely just adding to the mass of waste at some local landfill.
However, that's not the reason that I think the answer of "no" is astoundingly obvious (you might not have caught the primary reason for the answer being "no" on your first watch of that video; if so, watch it again. Good to go? Awesome). Hopefully you saw that the primary reason that the answer to the question is "no" is because what slew Swastika-Tongue in the first place was one, some, or all of the eight bullets that you had shot him with before using the axe to remove his head (like I said, it's a simple riddle). However, if you take away the obvious answer and just allow yourself to assume that the real question of the riddle is whether or not the axe you now hold in your hand in the presence of Zombie-Swastika-Tongue is the same one that you had used the previous winter to remove the head of his former self, then you have another riddle that is really a re-hash of a much older thought experiment: The Ship of Theseus.
The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment proposed by Plutarch in the first century C.E. It goes something like this: the ship in which the hero Theseus and the young Athenian men returned from Crete (see the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur) was honored by Athenians and kept in good repair in the harbor of Athens for many centuries. Over time, as parts of the ship would degrade, they were slowly replaced, so eventually there were not many of the original parts of the ship remaining. The question then became "Is the ship, after replacing part for part over time, still the Ship of Theseus?"
The thought experiment, as it stands, really questions the value an object has based upon its parts. It's a question of philosophical identity.
There are other versions of this thought experiment. Some of them predate Plutarch's Ship of Theseus. For instance, there is a version in which Socrates and Plato each slowly exchanged the parts of their carriages such that the parts that once were in Plato's carriage have been completely replaced with parts from Socrates' carriage and vice versa and then the question is posited as to whether Plato is now using Socrates' carriage or if he's still in his own.
Other variants of the thought experiment have come since the time of Plutarch (with some interesting additions). The version that appears most similar to the prologue from John Dies at the End is the one known as "My Grandfather's Axe": my grandfather had an axe which he gave to my father. My father replaced the haft before giving the axe to me. I had to replace the head. Do I still have my grandfather's axe?
One of the more interesting variants of this thought experiment was proposed by Thomas Hobbes, the 1700's English philosopher and author of Leviathan. Hobbes' addition to the thought experiment works this way: you have the Ship of Theseus. You slowly take one piece of the ship off and replace it with a new piece. The old piece you keep. You continue in this manner, replacing pieces of the ship and saving the removed pieces. As this is happening over time, you take the pieces that had been removed and use those pieces to build a new ship, of exactly the same structure and design. By the time you have replaced the final original piece of the ship, you now have two identical ships. Which one is the Ship of Theseus?
Here's a fantastic breakdown of the original Ship of Theseus thought experiment and the Hobbes version from Wireless Philosophy:
The thesis of Joseph Butler, as reviewed in that video and suggesting that "objects persist in only a loose and popular sense", seems like a nice way to shrug off the problem as not being a problem in the first place. This is usually a fun approach to a lot of philosophy problems since a lot of the time it seems like there's no resolution to a lot of philosophy problems.
The reason I like this thought experiment, be it after replacing axe parts following your unexplained need to slay and behead some dude with a swastika tattooed on his tongue or replacing pieces of Theseus' ship, is because it questions identity. We are constantly shedding cells and gaining new ones, so are we ever identical with who we were previously? Darth Vader was almost fully replaced by mechanical parts, so was he still Anakin Skywalker? The philosopher Wittgenstein might have thought these questions were balderdash ("Roughly speaking: to say of two things that they are identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing") and, if that were the case, he might have been right.
It would be interesting if we could just say that something is such because people agree to call it such. Maybe the Ship of Theseus is really just whatever anyone decides to call "the Ship of Theseus". Maybe Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker because someone calls him so. If that were the case, then the answer to the thought experiment as proposed in John Dies at the End might be that the axe you're holding in your hand is the same axe as the one that beheaded Swastika-Tongue because his zombie has now said that it is the same axe (it might be a good conclusion since chances are you should be more worried about dealing with said zombie before considering philosophical puzzles anyway).
However, I still feel like the answer would be "no". Even if you had killed the dude with an axe in the first place (and not with one, some, or all of those eight bullets), the original axe has been completely replaced. The answer feels like "no" because none of the original axe remains and there are only two major parts of the axe to replace. When the problem is introduced as in the case of the Ship of Theseus, where the object is replaced a small amount at a time, that's when it gets harder to decide when to even consider the ship to no longer be the original.
Maybe one of the more interesting answers comes from those who like to add the temporal dimension to the consideration, such as in the Worm Theory as presented in the video above. When we question the temporal aspect of an object along with it's identity, we start hinting at a possible answer to the question (see Temporal Parts at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). We can say that any one thing is only ever fully identical to itself at one point in time, but then at other points in time it can only be similar to itself. Then using a name to define something falls back to the "loose and popular" context that Butler suggested. That sounds just about right, honestly. The answer that would suggest then is that the Ship of Theseus was only the same ship in the sense that it bore similarity to itself over time and that people still called it the Ship of Theseus is the only thing that made it the Ship of Theseus. In that case, the axe that hewed the head laden with a swastika-marked tongue and the axe that you now have to defend yourself against the zombie at the door are only similar, and maybe you would call it a different axe since you know you've replaced the parts but the zombie calls it the same axe since it looks similar to the original. Not a very rewarding answer, but an answer nonetheless (and now you can get on with hacking down the zombie as he is more than likely about to come at you).
There's rich food for thought there. Maybe Wittgenstein is right and it's nonsense to even worry about two things being identical. That seems to fit well with the answer that considers the temporal aspect to mean that an object has unique temporal parts during its existence (look up perdurantism). Whatever anyone's consideration of this little thought experiment may be, I think we can all agree that it's a lucky thing we don't truly live in a world where a guy can get shot 8 times and have his head chopped off with an axe but then still find a way to come back from death and then sew his head back on before coming to find us with the likely intent of exacting revenge.
Update (22 October 2017): I re-shared this recently and have had several people ask if I've read the book John Dies at the End. Happily, I can say, yes, I have, and I've also read the sequel, This Book is Full of Spiders. A third book in the series, What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror, just came out this month. Looking forward to reading that as well!
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